Reclining chairs are commonly used for treatment of dental patients. Normally, a patient enters the chair while the seat back is in an upright position. Treatment is usually provided with the seat back reclined so that the patient is in a recumbent position. Armrests provide the patient with comfortable handhold and a feeling of security. The patient's movement on or off the chair can be facilitated by armrests that can be moved out of position to permit a patient to enter the chair from the side. A manually pivoting armrest of this type is disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application No. 07/501,674, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,349.
To reduce the risk of exposing a patient to contamination or infection, all surfaces requiring manual contact by dental personnel should be disinfected or sterilized. Thus, all manual adjustment controls should be disinfected regularly.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a dental chair having armrests that permit a patient to move on and off the chair from the side, and which armrests are raised on each side of the patient when the chair is in a reclined position.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a dental chair with armrests that are automatically positioned with chair movement and that do not require operator contact for adjustment or actuation.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a dental chair in which the armrests also can be manually moved, independent of the chair and regardless of the seat back position, to facilitate cleaning.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a dental chair with armrests that allow the seat back to be easily foldable forward into a more compact shipping package.
The present invention achieves the above objects by providing a dental chair which has a seat that includes a base, with a pair of armrests that are pivotally attached to the base to move between a lowered position and a raised position. The upper surfaces of the armrests are flush with the surface of the seat when in the lowered position. A seat back is pivotally attached to the base at a pivot point forward of the armrest pivot attachment. The seat back is movable between an upright position and a reclined position. The seat back includes a support pin positioned forward of the seat back pivot for supporting the armrest and for elevating it as the seat back reclines. The seat back pivot is located forward of the armrest pivot so that as the seat back moves through a relatively large angle in moving from the upright to the reclined position, the armrest elevates by a relatively limited angular amount to the raised position.